Alexander John Paul Lutz

I am a Research Fellow and Program Officer for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI) at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC).

I study the ideas, culture, and politics of the post-Soviet space, with particular attention to the South Caucasus, Ukraine, and Russia. I treat the (ongoing) post-Soviet moment as one defined by a struggle to bind the boundlessness—bespredel—that the Soviet collapse unleashed: to build states, to demarcate borders, and to answer fundamental questions about belonging, meaning, and purpose. My work traces that struggle through the (trans-)national projects, religious revivals, and many smaller, stranger experiments that have flourished in the wake of the collapse.

From 2025 to 2026, I was a Junior Fellow at CACI/AFPC. Before joining CACI/AFPC, I was a Max Kampelman Policy Fellow at the U.S. Helsinki Commission, a Georgian Studies Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, a Research Associate at the Institute for Peace Studies in Eastern Christianity, and a Researcher at the Georgian Institute of Politics in Tbilisi. I also currently serve as Caucasus Editor at Lossi 36.

I hold a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) from Harvard Divinity School, a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in International Affairs, Political Science, and History from Mercer University, and have undertaken additional language study with institutions in Kyiv and Baku through the Critical Language Scholarship program.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

You can learn more about me here.